How to go green without failures and disasters? 17

[RedSnake]

I think it is sad that we have thousands of years of accumulated knowledge and at least one hundred years of exponential technical development and we stil can’t utilize what we know.

I know it has much to do with politics, markets and peoples unwillingness to draw back on consumption and whether or not to believe in the scientists assessment of the climate change.
But I hope that we can keep that part of the discussion to a minimum and try to discuss the engineering and technical sides of things.

But since I am OP, I will start by not following my own advise. ;-)
By saying that, you do not need to be a scientist only a half dissent engineer, to know that if you put to many meta tablets in a toy steam engine and the pressure relief valve don’t work it will a eventually explode.

Best Regards A

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[1503-44]

I live in what's billed as the EU's favorite tourist destination. The local economy is nearly 50% dependent on it. There is only light industry here and little of it. There is limited technology of any kind, except at the airports, solar and wind installations. The remainder of the economy is mostly agricultural, some fishing, very limited construction industry, retail and services and gov related. There is one small refinery and an NGL fueled power generating plant, which own the only smoke stacks here, except for visiting cruise ships. Mining is limited to a rock quarry or two. There is no logging. Most all trees and wildlife are protected. There are plans for the future that are more and more green at each revision. It works just fine, as long as tourists keep arriving, which is a problem at present, but they will be back. All plans do not have to include basic industries.

I don't understand your apparent fascination with logging, mining and smokestack industries, which you even seem to need to justify by saying, if we don't cut down the trees, all the bambies will die anyway. It sounds like there are better habitats for bears too, being that they are apparently being displaced by the area's current development, which you also mention is increasing, so why not relocate them? A bear's future there probably isn't looking so great.

So what is your plan? You don't appear to like the green options. Why not try to participate and make a better plan, instead of griping all the time about green, clueless people on the internet? What does that accomplish?

 

[Fischstabchen]

Redsnake,

It is only ethical as an engineer to protect public safety and serve the client ethically. I get the suspicion that you feel engineers owe it to the public to be green friendly but that isn't the engineers job. An engineer has to serve the client and if the client wants whatever, that is what the client gets provided it doesn't violate some professional engineering law.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Its definitely an Engineers job in Europe t balance green against design.

And there is loads of law to force clients to be green anyway. All major projects will have an environmental impact study done anyway with loads of requirements which have to be complied with.

Green Engineers with a talent for it earn more money than none green. Being green is a major marketing feature for a product. Which is half the reason why there is so many arguments about product packaging with trade deals. Green products sell well over here.

 

[stevenal]

Climate change is very much an issue of public safety.

 

[1503-44]

An engineer has to serve the client and if the client wants whatever,

I stopped doing that long ago. If I do not believe the client is choosing options that are acceptable to my standards, I stop work. With quality clients that isn't a problem. I wont work with the others. We do as a team, or they go it alone and I at least keep my self respect if not theirs too. I-10 runs both ways.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Maybe why Texan engineers were run out of town in Aberdeen after 1986....

I used know Bill Watson quite well who took over the oxxy mess after piper, Through his daughter I hope he is still alive he was a lovely man.

 

[1503-44]

We really didn't leave. We just moved over to BP!
From the frying pan to the fire. Literally.

I always thought that was a bad place to put shutoff valves, but nobody had any back then that would work subsea. At least that's what I was told. So we put them between the boat landing and the lower deck. I liked designing the walkway and operator's platform. It required some imagination to connect it into the stairways and to find appropriate hanger locations. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a matter of cost, because back in the days of regulated pipeline utilities, we could recover any costs that we could justify. There were no such things as subsea production packages. A diver would have to turn the wheels.

It was also typical to use ANSI#900 when we really only needed 600 for pressure. In fact I was the one at Northern Natural Gas (Enron's father) that suggested we switch to 600# valves just a short time after deregulation. It was such an embedded practice that it took management a year to agree. Transcontinental Gas PL (now Williams) had the largest offshore pipeline system. I worked there 1988 to 89. Small world back then. Their design methods were kind of the defacto standard of the day, copied by everyone else, because there were no other codes or stds at the time. I'm not sure if they ever changed to 600. Gas companies would buy a percentage of another company's offshore pipeline projects just to get their hands on the competition's technology, which was changing day to day as we started venturing farther and farther out on the shelf. 800ft water depth was a long term goal at the time. Thinking about that, I might have run the first pipeline route survey off the edge of the shelf near High Island 582. Took 3 months Sept to Christmas 1985. Some 20ft wave days.

 

[RedSnake]

I get the suspicion that you feel engineers owe it to the public to be green friendly but that isn't the engineers job.

I owe the company I work for to be "green" in everything I do, because it is one of the company policies and we have a lot of environmental commitments to follow and because we are very close to public housing and it is a selling point for the costumers.

And it also saves money for the company in the long run.

Working in a "old" factory it is hardly rocket science to improve things and make them "greener".
Nothing was made for preserving energi 40-50 years ago.

Every time something needs to be changed it gets smaller and needs less power to do the same job, lights exchanged for leds, lighting turning on and of when needed, machines turn of when they aren't used, motors exchanged for motors with better efficiency, motors working as generators when they are turned of or breaking, heat exchanger reusing heat from one place to another, optimizing material use, exchanging water taps to low energy use of hot water, keeping the compressed air system leakage free, minimize the use of compressed air which is a very expensive and inefficient way of converting and using energy.

It is only ethical as an engineer to protect public safety and serve the client

True, but it wouldn't be ethical, not showing the clients options that would be equally as good and would save them money and at the same time making it both safer and cleaner and more nature friendly just because he didn't ask for it.

Best Regards A

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[1503-44]

Dont forget adding insulation...
It is often the most beneficial of all, but not as sexy as installing VFDs..

 

[cranky108]

Just the same, saying that wind and solar plant is the same as a coal plant but greener is being dishonest.
Wind and solar don't offer any backup, or energy storage, and as we are finding out, inverters are not spinning mass equals.

That's not to say there is no need for wind or solar, but to say, it should be valued lower than that of conventual energy.

To me, the gold standard for energy production is hydro power, but sadly we just can't put it anywhere.

 

[SnTMan]

Or even anywhere, anymore

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[moon161]

Dont forget adding insulation...
It is often the most beneficial of all, but not as sexy as installing VFDs..

Conservation is the least sexy production

 

[CWB1]

Most industrial companies in industrial nations on this side of the Atlantic do everything to make their products CO2 neutral.
And they do so because that is what the customers wants.
So no matter what you believe, if you as an industrial nation want to be on the train, and have a future for your products, I think that you will have no choice but to adapt whether you like it or not.

EU and world environmental regulation has largely been based on the US', we built that train. Regardless, I don't believe any significant portion of the population has much more than a token concern about the environment, most consumers won't pay significantly more for "green" products or energy so businesses' environmental policy is driven primarily by regulation.

Why say "not harm industry", instead of not harm people, for example?

Attempting to be specific. People comprise industry, other people attack industry. We need to keep the interests of both sides in mind. Its unfortunate, but many companies and entire industries (i.e. coal) have been vilified publicly and destroyed in recent decades for no good reason, often by folks with little/no technical knowledge of that company or industry and who could care less about the families whose lives/livelihoods are invested therein. Ultimately every change made has pros and cons. Lack of environmental regulation hurts the environment and people's health indirectly, too strict of environmental regulation hurts people directly via their wallets. I'm a big fan of balance and believe stateside we have been far from it for a half century.

 

[1503-44]

I don't believe any significant portion of the population has much more than a token concern about the environment, most consumers won't pay significantly more for "green" products or energy so businesses' environmental policy is driven primarily by regulation.

My impression, I do live in EU, is what you say may be true considering where you live, but such generalisations are not. Here people support environmental regulation and are directly responsible for the regulations having been enacted. Many will spend an extra euro or two and make a green product purchase. Locally we have just rejected several conventional water treatment plants proposed by the local government in favour of constructing natural treatment lagoons. It will cost more money and require more land to have these treatment lagoons, but we think it is better, as chemical discharges into the ocean will be minimized and much of the water discharged will be diverted to agricultural purposes.

Furthermore, my observations both here, in Africa and South America lead me to believe it is not so much dependent on costs of buying green. In fact I tend to believe that concern for the environment is inversely proportional to GDP[sup]2[/sup]. Those that live closer to the land, rivers and oceans see themselves as having a direct connection to it. They might not be "doing everything right", but once they are instructed in the manner of how, they immediately "get the why". You see it is because its only natural.

Yes, actually its more than natural. I was in country "x" in South America and went into a fine restaurant, only to see cans of vegetables with all the common brand labels found in the US of A sitting on a table behind the maitre d' Station. I was thinking thats weird, but after awhile it came to me. The restaurant was telling clients that they have the world's best products. But I thought, I'd rather try the local fresh veggies and fruits I saw in the market. They probably don't have all those preservatives and taste really fresh and sweet. Not to mention that those fresh market products are 25% of what they paid to import that canned stuff. You see buying green in most countries is cheaper. Its a necessity anyway. They're used to it. They want it. I found later on that even the restaurant was not actually serving the canned stuff; only displaying it. Here, everyone wants my bananas. I just water them. No insect poisons, no quick ripening agents. They are yellow, but green on the inside.

 

[CWB1]

IME people are largely the same world-round with similar motivations and concerns, the only real difference being their education and experience. My favorite example of this is the common love for alcohol, sex, and other vices in areas of severe cultural and legal repression like the Middle-east and SE Asia...or as my wife's friends might joke - guys are pigs everywhere.

I agree that many people will pay a token small additional cost for what they believe to be a slightly "better" product, and there are factors like "green" products, country of origin, etc that dont correlate to quality. Once most judge that the costs are becoming significant vs their personal benefit however then interest falls off quickly. Personally I cannot think of an example of a significantly expensive product or piece of infrastructure where being "green" was a common advertising/selling point aside from those spending govt/taxpayer money. Most everything sold privately from vehicles to homes to power plants are sold on low operational (energy) costs, not on being carbon-neutral or otherwise significantly exceeding any particular standard. Even cheaper items which folks tend to obsess over as impacting their health like food, drugs, etc are largely the same. My brother raises "organic" beef cattle which are govt certified to have only received minimal vaccinations for herd health (not growth hormones) and only consumed natural grasses (no pesticides). While there certainly are enough folks buying "organic" beef to keep him and many others in business, the majority of the supermarket isn't "organic" bc most buyers dont believe there is enough added value to justify the extra cost. Govt-funded projects are a bit of an exception in how they are "sold" to the public due to political pandering and bureaucrats throwing money at appeasing a minority of loud voices.

 

[Fischstabchen]

1503-44,

No that isn't a typo. Renewables are squeezing expensive units like single cycle steam and nuclear power plants. Coal I don't think can compete in high solar or wind regions. What will happen is as the price for renewable generation decreases, other generation ,with natural gas being the last holdout, will be systematically replaced as units retire to age or are no longer fiscally viable in unregulated markets. Natural gas units will exist for my lifetime ,in my opinion, due to being dispatchable and a tremendous amount of load will be coming online when electric cars become widespread.

 

[RedSnake]

EU and world environmental regulation has largely been based on the US', we built that train.

And I have to disagree.
Why ?
Because you are all decedents of Europeans and your way of thinking is handed down to you by your ancestors, when it comes to technical standards and regulations the Germans has been a driving force for centuries. ;-)
I am a big tease now, so don't work yourself up.

And now I am going to, go totally of topic.
Sometimes I wonder if I could actually figure out what your ancestry is based on your reasoning
That Fischstabchen has a german alias doesn't necessary mean that he has a German ancestry, german is spoken in so many parts of Europe.
But with your stile of arguing I am actually leaning more in the German direction not so much Scandinavia even if that hade been a low odds bet if you are actually born and raced in Michigan and haven't just moved in.

Best Regards A

PS. Just being a bit tired of being a engineer today, and just felt like letting my thoughts wander.



“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[1503-44]

Fisch,
Yes I've said the same many times above. That part is true, cheap renewable power will replace coal/gas/oil/nukes, but it is the result of economics, not regulation, or deregulation, as your posts in the TX Power thread imply.

OK, We seem to agree about that now, at least in this thread.

 

[1503-44]

ExxonMobil appointed a climate-minded activist investor to its board of directors after investment firm Engine No. 1 called on the American oil and gas giant to overhaul its board with expertise on climate change to drive its industrial transformation. The current business model is exposed to “immense risk” in the global realignment toward cleaner energies, Engine No. 1 said. In Europe, British oil and gas firm BP aims to become an “integrated energy company” and pledged to reduce its oil and gas production by over 40% by 2030.

https://tankterminals.com/news/are-gulf-oil-giants-ready-to-go-green/

 

[1503-44]

They're trying... (to minimize methane emissions)

A Colorado natural gas producer, an infrastructure operator (gatherer and gas processor) and local municipal utility have entered into a first-of-its-kind Responsibly Sourced Gas (RSG) pilot project with Project Canary. Project Canary will provide technologies, data monitoring to measure methane emissions, and independent RSG certification.

https://pipelinetownhall.com/news/n...h-responsibly-sourced-natural-gas-partnership